24hGold tonight republishes a 4-year-old essay by the economic historian Antal Fekete speculating, as silver market analyst Ted Butler long has done, that China is the major short in the silver market.

"The Chinese," Fekete writes, "are alive to the fact that escaped the silver bugs in the West -- that you can derive a silver income from your pile of silver by covered short selling, even while retaining physical control of your silver hoard. This is an unprecedented bonanza in the history of money. It has never before happened that you earn interest while retaining physical control of your money. Typically you have to release control of money to earn interest income -- that is, you have to assume risk. Lending money necessarily involves risks: The borrower may default. But if you don't give up physical control, then you will escape the monetary debacle unscathed. Because of the imbecility of the managers of the paper dollar standard there exist durable risk-free profit opportunities in holding monetary metals in the balance sheet. The trick is: covered selling. That's possible because the price of monetary metals has been allowed to fluctuate. The price fluctuation of a monetary metal, like the flow-and-ebb of the oceans, represents energy -- energy that can be harnessed, energy that can be harnessed only by those who understand monetary economics."

Get the real story about the precious metals
from the Sprott Precious Metals Round Table

Now you don't have to travel to attend a financial conference to hear Sprott Asset Management's precious metals experts -- Eric Sprott, Rick Rule, and John Embry. They'll be holding a round-table discussion via the Internet at 2 p.m. ET Tuesday, February 12, and you can be part of it. Among their topics:

-- Why are precious metals such a compelling investment opportunity?

-- Why are non-G7 central banks buying gold? Do Western central banks have any left?

-- Why are investors buying as much silver as gold in dollar terms? What does this mean for the price of silver?

-- Is the growing supply deficit of platinum and palladium going to push their prices higher?

To register for this Internet conference and participate from the comfort of your own home or office, please visit:

Financial journalist James Grant says of "The True Gold Standard": "If you have ever wondered how the world can get from here to there -- from the chaos of depreciating paper to a convertible currency worthy of our children and our grandchildren -- wonder no more. The answer, brilliantly expounded, is between these covers. America has long needed a modern Alexander Hamilton. In Lewis E. Lehrman she has finally found him."